Friday, November 04, 2011

Disregard MoveOn's ballot (and Peter Brown's endorsement)

Today is your last opportunity to cast an early vote in Houston's municipal elections. You have until 7 p.m this evening to do so, and then you have to wait until Election Day, next Tuesday.

MoveOn has distributed their "Progressive Ballot Guide", and for the most part it is a joke. That's because the ballot has been infiltrated with Republican disruptors. It's just "Operation Chaos" up to its usual tricks. For example ...

-- District A lists a split vote, but click in and you'll see several recommendations for incumbent Brenda Stardig -- Republican, incumbent, possible alcoholic -- as the 'progressive' choice. That would be laughably false.

-- At Large #4's recommendation is Chief Crime Labford -- who happens to be the least progressive choice.

The same goes for anyone who pays attention to anything Mr. Schlumberger says. I'm convinced that if Peter Brown and Bill White plan on running for office again, it won't be as Democrats. You just can't piss down the back of the African-American voting bloc and expect to get away with it.

Neither man is smart enough or devious enough to be playing three-dimensional chess/jiu-jitsu here, either. Conservatives are interpreting this move as a reason for them NOT to vote for Jack Christie, which is certainly reason enough. And they have a perfectly good 'B' option in At Large #5. What I said over two weeks ago:

Conservatives who seriously think that White's endorsement damns Christie with faint praise have another option in AL5: Bob Ryan. Bob's a longtime friend of my family, and earned some renown as the Harris County grand jury foreman that in 2008 indicted Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina on arson charges (that former DA Chuck Rosenthal refused to pursue). Ryan's about as principled a Republican as they come.

If Republicans are smart enough to figure this one out ... well, so is everybody else.